


Don't Leave Me Hangin' on the Telephone

by TimAndJava



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, gratitous use of original child characters, rainbow rowell is a genius, the landline AU that nobody asked for, william can cook, wow my second landline AU fic sorry guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-13 11:06:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16016630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimAndJava/pseuds/TimAndJava
Summary: Derek is finally presented with the opportunity to achieve his lifelong dream of publishing a collection of poetry. Under normal circumstances, Will would be thrilled for his husband...but this opportunity means that Derek ahs to skip a long-scheduled family trip to visit Will's family in Maine. And for Will, this may just be the last straw.But maybe, just maybe, Chris Chow, a magical telephone, and the power of poetry can save the Poindexters from falling apart.{On a semi-permanent hiatus}





	1. Chapter 1

Derek had always hated coming home late. 

He hated how the kids and Will always waited up for him, the four of them all determined to actually stay up until Derek got home.

They could never quite stay awake that long, though. Which led to grumpy children and a husband who would complain the next day about the crick in his neck from sleeping on the couch with their oodles of offspring.

But more than anything, Derek hated it because coming home late reminded him of his own, often absent father. And Derek wanted to be as far from that person as possible.

But sometimes, the late nights were unavoidable.

-

After dropping his work bag on the counter, Derek tip-toed over to the couch and shook his husband’s shoulder gently.

“Will,”Derek whispered, “I’m home.”

A bleary-eyed William Pointdexter only grunted in response. He began to stir on the couch, which in turn jostled the kids around, beginning waking them up, too.

Sean, the oldest,  was the first of the kids to wake up, and he did so with his trademark scowl.

“Jesus, dad,” Sean whined, “could you be any later?”

Derek winced and glanced at the clock hanging across from the couch. It was half past three in the morning. He felt his anxiety begin to build from the guilt.

“Sorry, kid,” Derek apologized meekly. “It was a weird day at the office. Sorry I couldn’t go with Will to pick you up today, but I’m glad you’re back from Andover.”

Sean just shrugged. Their voices had sprung Will back to full alertness, and he finally produced a coherent sentence. 

“Hi, Der,” WIll said, “could you guys get these nightmares off of my legs, please?”

Derek and Sean were happy to oblige. Sean delightedly shoved his brother Finn off the couch, and was met with a curse. Derek plopped Norah onto the carpet. Will swept their still sleeping youngest, four year old Liam, into his arms.

“That’s much better,” WIll said. “Now that dad is back, I vote that you all go to bed for real, instead of just lounging on top of my body.”

The oldest three children grumbled but did as they were asked, while Will carried Liam off to bed. Derek puttered around the kitchen, knowing that his husband would end up there in a few minutes.

Will, as anticipated, walked into the kitchen with a tired smile. 

“You want me to warm up our dinner leftovers?” 

Derek nodded silently. Will was in a more pleasant mood than he usually was on nights when Derek worked late, so that was...nice.

As Will reheated what appeared to be some stir fry concoction, he rambled about, in a way that reminded Derek fondly of Bitty.

“So mom said that she had some great ideas for gifts this year. ALthough she and I have different definitions of what makes a great gift. God, I hope she doesn’t just buy us all rainbow stick tape again. Our supply could last decades, Derek. But I guess I’m excited that she’s excited to see us…”

Derek let himself zone out while his husband spoke, it was therapeutic and soothing.

Well. It was. Until Derek realized what Will was talking about.

“Shit,” Derek said suddenly, interrupting Will’s rant. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Will pulled his attention away from the food he was reheating and turned to face Derek. “Why all the shits, Der?”

Derek ran a hand through his curls and cursed again.

“Baby,” Derek began before Will cut him off.

“What the hell, Derek, you only bring out ‘baby’ when something’s fucked up.”

“I know, I know,” Derek pleaded. “I fucked up. But you have to let me explain.”

Willa arched one ginger eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Okay,” Derek began. “Something came up at work. Something big.”

“Are you going to elaborate?”

“Yes!” Derek bit out. “It’s about my collection. They want to publish it.”

Will’s eyebrow shot back down to its original position, and his face broke out into a broad smile.

“That’s great!” Will exclaimed. “You’ve been working on that for so long. I’m glad your idiot boss finally realized that one of his best editors is also one hell of a poet.”

“Yeah, it’s exciting,” Derek said in a monotone voice. 

“Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ to this discussion?” WIll asked quietly. “You’re not reacting the way you should if you’ve just got good news. And you called me ‘baby.’ ”

Derek sighed.

“It’s just that they need me to do some edits on it before they officially approve it.” Derek explained. “And they need them done before the new year, so they can announce it with the upcoming stuff for January.”

“So?” Will countered. “Do the edits then, right? What’s wrong?”

Derek bit his lip, and then decided to just rip the bandaid off.

“This editing process means that I can’t go to Maine, Will. We can’t go to Maine.”

An awkward silence hung in the air for a few seconds. The microwave went off, signalling that Derek’s dinner was warm, but neither of the men move to grab the food. They just stand there, locked in a staring contest of sorts.

Derek is the first to break the silence.

“Look, I’m really sorry-”

“Sorry?” Will cuts him off with a laugh, “you’re sorry, Derek? We’ve been planning this trip for six months, I don’t think sorry cuts it. We haven’t been out to Maine since before Liam was born, Jesus Christ! It’s been years since we’ve seen the extended family!”

“I know!” Derek says roughly. “I know. It’s shitty of me. I know. But I swear we can go in January to visit-”

“Ha!” Will snarks, “sure, Derek! Let’s yank the kids out of school to hang out in fucking Maine! Are you forgetting that one of our kids goes to Andover, and that three out of the four of them play competitive hockey?”

“Okay, well in summer then!” Derek shouted.

“Hockey camps, Derek!” Will screams. “They’ll all be at fucking hockey camps! And Sean has college scouting shit to worry about, he’ll be a senior next year!”

“Well what do we do, then, William?” Derek screamed across the kitchen.

Right after the words flew out of Derek’s mouth, little feet padded down the hallway adjacent to the kitchen.

“Daddy?” Liam said sleepily. 

Will squatted down to Liam’s level and put on a fake smile.”Let’s go back to bed, Li, okay?”

Derek watched as his husband and his son disappeared down the long hallway, and felt his heart drop into his stomach.

When Will returned, he had a message for his husband.

“Fine, Derek. You stay, we’ll go.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update is short, but it's here on time!

In the morning a few days later, Derek watched idly as his family packed and rushed around, preparing to leave to catch their flight to Maine. When the time came, Derek bid them each goodbye individually, out on the front stoop of their brownstone.

Derek exchanged a short but meaningful hug with his oldest son. He ruffled Sean’s curls, and was met with squawks of protest.

“Dad, stop,” Sean whined. “Good luck with the work stuff, though, okay?”

Derek nodded. “Okay, kid. Good luck keeping up with the workout regimine surrounded by all your cousins. And all that food.”

Sean just smirked, and Derek moved on to Finn.  
Just a sophomore in high school, Finn was already the tallest of the Poindexter brood. Derek had to tilt his chin up to look his son in the eyes.

“Have fun, okay Finny?” Derek said.

The reserved boy just nodded and let out a quiet “love you.”

Norah was next. She had her earbuds in and was already trapped in her own world of music, so Derek just kissed the twelve year old’s forehead. She knew what he’d meant by it.

Will and Liam were last. The four year old was sleeping, his head wedged in between Will’s neck and shoulder.

“I’m sorry I can’t go with,” Derek said softly.

“Can’t or won’t?” Will asked in return.

Derek just scowled in response.

“That’s what I thought,” Will chirped.

“I love you,” Derek said quietly. He planted a chaste kiss on Will’s lips, and then kissed Liam’s forehead. “Have a good time. Tell the Poindexters I said hello.”

Will walked off the front stoop without another word, and ushered the kids into the car that was waiting by the curb.

And Derek just watched as all the people he loved most drove off into the distance.

 

-

Derek knew he wasn’t going to be very productive in the office that day, but he went into work anyways, just to feel like he was doing something. He had some young adult pieces to edit before he get to his own stuff, so he figured he’d just mope through that all day and see what came of it.

As he entered the building, he was greeted by the smell of peppermint. Not an unusual scent to smell at Christmas time, but it was one of Derek’s favorites.

The source of the smell was a drink carrier held by Maria, one of Derek’s favorite coworkers.

“Good morning, Derek,” she greeted him, “Starbucks fucked up my order so now I have two peppermint mochas. You want one?”

“Sure,” Derek said easily. Free coffee was already a significant improvement in comparison to the rest of his morning.

“I’ve got a light workload today,” Maria chattered, “so if you feel like hanging out in my office sometime today and just dicking around, my door is open. It’ll be like old times.”

Derek smiled as his coworker walked away. It would be just like old times- he and Maria had worked on Samwell’s literary review back in college. They’d always been close, working on writing together, grabbing coffee when they hit a wall. During their senior year, Maria even started going to hockey games to support her favorite English major pal- something that never failed to piss of Derek’s then boyfriend Will.

As he sipped his peppermint mocha, Derek walked toward his office. Once he got there, and got his laptop out of his bag and sat down at his desk. Time to at least try to do some work.

Once his laptop was booted up and running, Derek’s desire to work immediately disappeared. He stared sadly at his desktop background, a smiling picture of him, Will, and the kids.

His heart hurt.

Luckily, he was drawn out of his sadness by the voice of his assistant, Ellie.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’ve got a call on line two, Derek,” Ellie called from the front room.

“Thanks, E,” Derek called back. He picked up the phone.

“Derek Nurse speaking.”

“Nursey!” came the enthusiastic reply. Derek knew that unmistakable voice. Christopher Chow.

“Chowder!” Derek replied with equal enthusiasm. “What’s up man? Why’d you call my work number?”

“First off, you didn’t answer your cell, Nursey,” Chowder scolded, “so thanks for the trouble. But I called you because I talked to Dex last night. He said you guys were splitting up for Christmas, is that true?”

Derek groaned. “Why’d you have to put it like that, C?”  
“Sorry,bro,” Chowder apologized sheepishly. “But is it true though?”

“Yeah, I guess. He took the kids to Maine. I had something come up at work, so I had to stay home.”

“That’s rough, man,” Chowder commiserated. “I feel bad. You’re alone on Christmas!”

“It’s not Christmas yet, C. It’s only the twenty third.”

“But still! You should come over to our place tonight. Let us share our Christmas cheer with you, man.”

Derek laughed. “Yo, you guys are Jewish, C.”

Derek could practically hear Chowder shrugging over the phone.

“I mean technically. But AJ is home and he still watches the Christmas specials! Say you’ll come over?”

“Sure, C. Sure.”

-

Derek was finally able to focus on his work now that he had the prospect of dinner with the Chows to look forward to. He finished editing some generic teen vampire romance, and then switched to working on his own poetry.

Most of the editing his pieces required was simple stuff. A typo to be changed here, a comma splice to be avoided there.

But the publishing house also wanted Derek to write one more piece. Something a bit longer than the others in the collection. It would be the closer, meant to tie all of the pieces together. He’d also need one of his trademark doodles to accompany the piece.

Usually, poetry flowed right out of Derek’s brain and onto the page.But this closing piece would be a difficult one to write.

Because if Derek was being honest, the collection was mainly focused around Will.

And it was really hard for him to write about his muse when said muse was angry with him.

So, when the clock hit four, Derek closed his laptop and called it a day. He was leaving earlier than usual, but he’d be in early the next morning to make up for it.  
As Derek was on his way out, he ran into Maria again. This time, she was clutching a brown paper takeout bag instead of coffee cups.

“You again,” she joked. “You must’ve been really busy today, you never came looking for me!”

“I got some work done on that vampire book,” Derek said. “But other than that, it was pretty unproductive. Chris Chow called me a few hours ago, which was nice and distracting.”

“That name rings a bell,” Maria said thoughtfully. “He was on the hockey team too, yeah?”

Nursey nodded. “One of my best friends from the team, even to this day.”

“Other than that charming husband of yours, huh?” Maria joked.

“Yeah, right,” Derek said with a tight smile.

“Uh oh,” Maria stage whispered, “trouble in paradise?”

Derek shrugged. “We’ve been married for twenty years now, I guess it’s safe to say we’re out of the honeymoon phase.”

“Marital strife happens to the best of us, Derek,” Maria comforted him. “Trust me, I’d know.”

And with that, she turned and walked back towards her office, calling “see you tomorrow” over her shoulder.

Derek was left thinking about what she meant by ‘she’d know.’

He failed to recognize the new lack of a wedding band on her slim ring finger.

Derek wasn’t always great at picking out the details.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Rainbow Rowell's "Landline" so much I can hardly stand it. And Iove all these hockey nerds. So here's the story that came out of that mutual love! I plan to post updates every Sunday. Unsure how long it'll be, but I hope to know soon! Thanks for reading!


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